The Update: Leaving Boston Consulting Group to Join Replit
After two and a half amazing years at BCG, I decided to take the plunge and join Replit as a member of the business operations team. One day, I will need to write an entire blog on how thankful I am to BCG. But today, I will just focus on what’s next.
As many could guess from this newsletter, my passion is in finding, showcasing, and supporting amazing builders.
Most of our problems in society are one highly-motivated entrepreneur away from being solved. That’s what excites me!
Originally, I thought the best path for me was consulting or investing, but through writing this newsletter (and learning about Replit), I decided to first jump into the arena. Moving forward I will continue to use my free time to support founders & companies via this newsletters and amazing *growing* audience. I already have the next company nearly complete.
My day-to-day, however, will shift to focusing on Replit!
The experience as a reader will be the same. There may, however, be a few more shameless Replit plugs… beginning with today!
Why Replit?
It is no secret I have been a Replit fanboy for awhile. In addition, to tens of tweets, I wrote about Replit in February 2021 and December 2021. They were the first company I wrote about.
Note: For a full breakdown of the business, I recommend reading the post from December 2021. Today, I will go into much less depth
In between the two posts, I followed the company closely, and there were four distinct characteristics that gave me strong conviction in Replit:
The Mission
The Culture
The Trajectory
The Intangibles
The Mission: Bring the next billion software creators online
Replit’s building a platform that anyone, anywhere in the world with a basic device and internet connection can learn, build, host, and deploy. Removing the friction in both learning to program and launching products should dramatically improve economic mobility options.
For many of my international teammates in professional baseball, there were limited economic opportunities if they were sent home. Baseball was the only option.
With Replit, anyone can participate in the global programmer creator economy. Replit is basically providing Universal Basic Computing
Seems ambitious, right? Extremely. There are likely options to monetize much quicker, but for Replit, this isn’t just a company… it is a mission.
And the company and employees have no shortage of ambition. Way before Replit’s Series B, Amjad tried to tell people… and the replies were quite critical.
But for those listening, myself included, you can see the goal & potential social impact. The ultimate equalizer. The original plan of the internet. Anyone. Anywhere. Can participate economically and have the opportunity to build.
The Culture: Seek pain
Achieving this ambition is… well ugh… hard, to say the least. It requires fast learning. Constant building. And seeking pain.
Most people step away from pain, but at Replit, they have built a culture that leans into it. This means constant feedback. Accepting & learning from failure, paired with a strong pivot.
As a result, you see a company that “think[s] radically, ship[s] incrementally.” The vision and ambition is huge. People should be pushing the boundaries. But doing so requires quick iteration & a bias to action.
This type of speed & iteration is something that Paul Graham has highlighted as an accurate predictor of success. If there was any doubt whether this is all lip-service from Replit, you can actually see a full list of products shipped recently here. The speed is astounding.
Beyond just shipping features, the entire Replit culture values learning. The product is quite literally built on that concept. Every employee has an interest in programming, and beyond that, the culture promotes learning in other ways (e.g., Book Clubs, allowing me to continue my newsletter).
The Trajectory: The inflection point
Replit has been on a tear, but do not forget how early it is. The company was founded in 2016, and it has slowly been building & compounding.
At some point in ~2019, Replit truly hit an inflection point. The exponential growth curve of users really started to take shape. ~24 months later, it has continued, with recent data points showing it far exceed these numbers.
With $80M in fresh funding from top investors, the plan is to accelerate.
And the time to do so is now. The trajectory of the company is already beginning to match the ambition of the company!
The Intangibles: Permission to be whacky
The mission, culture, & trajectory check every box I could imagine, but there is one last part that stuck out. It is related to culture, but I thought it deserved a separate callout.
The company has a rare combination of nerdiness, swagger, and fun.
Replit employees truly love the tech, and that comes through in the product they have built, the core mission they have set, and the building culture they have cultivated.
But while they do it, they are being creative & having fun.
There is an entire art gallery of futuristic, colorful imagery the company has built.
Many of the employees have public personas paired with whacky avatars, and let’s never forget the Coachella-style fundraise announcement.
This type of fun, radical, & unbounded thinking is exactly the intangible that made me realize this team, above all others, is prepared to achieve this mission & ambition.
So for all of that, I had no choice but to join. When you see a rocket ship lifting off, it’s time to jump on!
And best of all… we are hiring!!! So reach out!